Joseph Primed for Egypt
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
… as Enlilite strategy to repossess the strategically significant country is operationalised
For expelling the Hykso-Hebrews from Egypt and reuniting the country for the first time in 500 years, the Bantu Pharaoh Ahmose (whose name meant “Begotten of Ea”, Ea being an alternative name for Enki, the Anunnaki god of Africans) became a legend. He became the founder of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty, which ushered in a golden era of Egypt which lasted right through to about the end of the 14th century BC. Simultaneously, the 18th Dynasty marked the inception of the so-called New Kingdom.
The New Kingdom spanned the 18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties of Egypt and was in force from the 16th to the 11th century BC. Egypt was not only at the height of its economic success during this period but was also at the peak of its power militarily. Just how did Ahmose (and his late older brother Kamose, in whose steps he dutifully followed), who was only 20 years old when he took on the Hyksos, manage to rout the Hyksos, who were so militarily strong they had turned southern Egypt into a vassal state?
Two reasons can be ventured. First, the Hyksos were so cruel and callous in the way they treated the black Egyptians every black Egyptian was prepared to die just to be rid of them. The ancient Egyptian historian Manetho informs us that Hyksos made a habit of burning down cities, destroying temples, and enslaving women and children just to flex muscles. It was not the Hebrews who were enslaved first in Egypt: it was the indigenous Egyptians who were first enslaved by the Hebrews, a settler race.
But there’s another and probably more pertinent reason as to why the weaker subjects (southern Egyptians) pulled off the otherwise inconceivable feat of chasing the Hebrews all the way to Canaan. It was all schemed by Enlilites as part of their ultimate agenda to get a tight grip on Canaan. The Enlilites wanted the Hebrews to depart Egypt, at least for the time being, and populate Canaan, which at the time was dominated by the descendants not of Abraham but of Canaan (who fittingly lent their name to the entire territory), the son of Ham.
It was via Jerusalem King Anu, “Our Father Who Art In Heaven”, would land on planet Earth when he arrived from Nibiru and the appropriate people to welcome him were the Hebrews, the descendents of Shem and the legal owners of Canaan. If you recall, it was Shem’s people who were allocated Canaan when the Anunnaki partitioned the known world after the Deluge of Noah’s day.
If the Enlilites wanted generations of Hebrews to have lived in Canaan by the time Anu returned, they were capable of orchestrating exactly that behind the scenes in whatever way would make it tenable. Thus using very tactfully sophisticated means to accomplish their end, they enfeebled the Hyksos and boosted the arsenals and military mettle of the indigenous Egyptians without the latter being aware that they were actually being aided and abetted by the very gods of their enemy. This Earth, My Brother …
PHARAOH AHMOSE RESTORES EGYPT TO GREATNESS
Throughout the 15 years that he was Pharaoh of a reunited Egypt (circa 1540-1525 BC), Ahmose saw to it that the Hyksos never again rebounded to present a thorn in the side of native Egyptians. He kept making inroads into Canaan and even as far as Syria and the Euphrates region so as not to instill in them the merest sense of renewed hope of striking back at him again.
Not only did Ahmose recapture northern Egypt: he also overran Nubia (Sudan), whose leader had been an ally of the Hyksos and was therefore instrumental in bringing about southern Egypt’s economic strangulation. Soon resources which southern Egypt was denied under Hykso hegemony now came in flurries– gold and silver from Nubia; Lapis Lazuli from yonder in Central Asia; cedar from Lebanon; and turquoise from the re-opened mine at Serabit El-Khadim in the Sinai wilds. The Egyptian empire prospered like never before and this was wholly under pitch-black rulers.
Now, northern Egypt was not completely emptied of the Hykso-Hebrew race. There were a few tens of thousands who had opted to remain in their bastion, Avaris, come what may out of fear of heading for a unfamiliar place, which was understandable having lived in Egypt for 500 years. Of course Ahmose would have easily exterminated them if he wanted to for daring him, but he was not prepared to resort to such an extreme and barbaric measure in the spirit of botho. What he decided instead was to subject them to serfdom – slavery.
It was not that he exulted at seeing them in perpetual toil: this was done as a precautionary measure, with a view to ensuring that they did not regroup and launch a new uprising against central authority. As far as Ahmose was concerned, the only safe Hebrew was an enslaved one. To his credit though, Hykso servitude under his rule was not that vindictive (that happened in the time of Ramses I, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, also referred to as the Pharaoh of the Oppression): it was relatively humane.
The Hyksos were mostly used in infrastructural projects. At the time, much of Avaris had been destroyed in the liberation war. Ahmose used free Hykso labour to rebuild it and renamed it Zaru. Zaru became the main outpost on the Asiatic frontier, the point at which Egyptian armies began and ended their campaigns against Canaan and Syria mainly. Although Ahmose made Thebes, in southern Egypt, the capital and chief religious centre of the country, he established his main residence at Memphis in northern Egypt to be close by in the event that Hyksos were up to some mischief.
Ahmose died very young, from natural causes, in 1525 BC, at age 35. In fact, the greater majority of the 18th Dynasty’s 14 pharaohs died early. A modern-day surgeon at London’s Imperial College analysed the mummies of many of these pharaohs and determined that they likely died from a diseases of the nervous system known as Temporal Lobotomy Epilepsy, which was embedded genetically in their case, an adverse result, we suppose, of inbreeding as pharaonic marriages were typically between half or full siblings. The disease typically begins at the end of the first or second decade of one’s life.
SIX MORE PHARAOHS RULE BEFORE JOSEPH’S DAY
Ahmosis was succeeded by his son Amenhotep I. Amenhotep (“Amen {Marduk} is satisfied”) was not actually destined to rule. His two older brothers, Sapair and Ankh, succumbed to illness before their father, which cleared the way for his ascension to the throne as the surviving eldest son. Amenhotep I was followed by Tuthmosis I. His name meant “Son of Thoth”, Thoth being the Egyptian name for Ningishzidda, Enki’s genius son.
All pharaohs were referred to as “Son of God”, the god being an Anunnaki whom they revered the most after the national god Marduk, who was known as Amen-Ra in Egypt. As such, Tuthmosis held Ningishzidda, who was reputed as the Anunnaki God of Knowledge and Wisdom, in very high esteem. This freedom of worship was thanks to Marduk. Marduk did not insist that his client kings worship him solely. He allowed them to worship whatever god they wanted though in Egypt for one, this god had to be an Enkite. But in his other jurisdictions, such as Babylon for instance, a king could even worship an Enlilite, a case in point being the great Hammurabi, who in his prayers invoked both Marduk and Utu-Shamash.
Tuthmosis I had 4 children with his chief wife Ahmose, 2 sons and daughters. Both his sons died before him and so for his heir, he settled for the eldest son of his junior wife. The son succeeded him as Tuthmosis II. But in order to secure his kingship, Tuthmosis II had to marry Hatshepsut, his half-sister, who was Tuthmosis I’s eldest daughter. Tuthmosis II and Hatshepsut had one child, a daughter. His successor, Tuthmosis III, therefore came from a junior wife. At the time of the pharaoh’s death, however, Tuthmosis III was just a little boy and so Hatshepsut ruled in his stead as regent.
However, when Tuthmosis III came of age, Hatshepsut refused to step down from the throne. Her bone of contention was that she merited being pharaoh even more than Tuthmosis III in that her real father, so she claimed, was not Tuthmosis I but the god Marduk himself, who had stealthily impregnated her mother Nefertiri. In the event, Tuthmosis III and her struck a compromise whereby by they ruled jointly, though it was Hatshepsut who really called the shots. She ruled with distinction and has been described as “the first great woman in history of whom we are informed”. She was the second female pharaoh after Sobkneferu of the 12th Dynasty, the only other female pharaoh being Cleopatra, the last pharaoh.
Tuthmosis III did become his own pharaoh after Hatshepsut’s death, whereupon he ruled for the next 30 years or so. A highly ambitious and expansionist ruler, he has been dubbed the “Napoleon of Egypt”, its greatest conqueror. During his tenure, he waged just under 20 wars and seized and captured over 350 cities stretching from Nubia (Sudan) to the Euphrates. This included the entire land of Canaan, which you must take note of as it is significant at this stage of the overall narrative.
Tuthmosis III was succeeded by Amenhotep II. Like his namesake Amenhotep I, Amenhotep II was not the natural heir. The natural heir, Amenemhat, and his mother died during Amehotep I’s reign. Following the death of his queen, Thothmosis III married a new wife, a non-royal. It was this non-royal wife who became the mother of Amenhotep II.
Amenhotep II was born and raised in Memphis in northern Egypt, where Hebrews teemed. Although he maintained the vast kingdom created by his father, Amenhotep II was not keen on wars. He in fact forged a sustained peace with the Kingdom of Mittani, which was vying for Egypt for the control of Syria. But it was under Tuthmosis IV, the 8th pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, that the Enlilites made the first decisive step to regain rulership of Egypt.
BIBLE MERGES SEVERAL PERSONS INTO ONE
At this juncture, we enter a rather grey area in the history of the Hebrew patriarchs. That is because the authors of the Old Testament have a tendency to merge the life histories of two to three different people into one (something akin to knitting together key events from the lives of Khama I, Khama II, and Khama III and presenting them in history as simply story of one person known as Khama) but without directly stating so.
For example, we know, courtesy of the Sumerian records, that when Genesis talks about Adam, it is actually talking about three Adams – the first primitive and sterile Adam, who was brought about (by way of genetic engineering) by Enki; the second, sexually productive Adam, who was placed in the garden of Eden (that is, the Edin in modern-day Iraq) and later expelled; and Adapa, Enki’s son with an Earthling woman and who has gone into the annals of mankind as the first civilised human. These three Adams were separated by thousands of years but Genesis fuses them into one, composite individual.
By the same token, there must have been several eminent, genetically related individuals who went by the names Jacob and Joseph, but Genesis gives the impression, wrongly, that there was only one Jacob and one Joseph. Let’s take Joseph. According to the more comprehensive and reliable Egyptian records, Joseph rose to prominence in Egypt during the reigns of Pharaohs Thutmosis IV and Amenhotep III. These two pharaohs were in power during the 14th century BC. But Joseph, Jacob’s son, came along in the 16th century BC, which makes the 14th century BC Joseph a different person altogether although he certainly was a descendant of Jacob and the 16th century BC Joseph.
The above anomalies explain why the Bible, when it talks about the pharaohs of both Moses’s and Joseph’s day, does not specify by name which particular pharaoh it was, thus leaving us guessing. Clearly, the authors of Genesis knew they had blended several Josephs or Jacobs into one individual and to associate them with only one particular pharaoh would have been the height of absurdity.
In the same vein, we now can understand why such featureless names as Joseph or Moses were employed. We know they were not real names: Joseph meant “scion of a sheep”(to cite just one probable meaning as there were several), or simply Jew (sheep were known as Ewes in antiquity, which is pronounced Jew today) and Moses simply meant “son of”. If you are talking about different persons who you have merged into one composite figure, you play it safe by assigning such a wooly name to that figure.
Having regard to the aforesaid state of affairs, we must be wary that we do not be very dogmatic about timelines. In any case, historians and scholars themselves are not unanimous on the timelines of both the biblical patriarchs and the Egyptian pharaohs. They are the first to admit that most of the timelines are conjectural.
JOSEPH CHOSEN AS ENLIL’S TROJAN HORSE
According to Genesis, Joseph was sold to Egyptian slave merchants by his brothers out of sheer jealous as he was his father’s favourite child. Of course reading the story at face value, which portrays the Jacobite family as simple, rural backwater sheep herders, one might naively believe the story when it is pure poppycock.
Maybe I’m repeating this for the hundredth time now: the biblical patriarchs were not poor people. They were a rich dynasty, a ruling line. They were never a poor, struggling clan. When they are referred to as shepherds, what that simply means is that they were their God Jehovah-Enlil’s docile followers, that is, theoretically at least, they obeyed him without question, stupidly, like sheep. The term shepherd also implied that they were the custodians (by hook and crook albeit) of the Age of the Ram, the Age of Sheep. That was what Enlil had designated them as.
So what point are we trying to drive across folks? It is that there was utterly no way a monarchic family would have sold a brother in the manner Genesis describes. The story is a total fiction. Every member of a dynastic family was always accompanied by a retinue of bodyguards especially in those turbulent times. The dynastic family head had spies permeating every aspect of life. That’s why when Reuben slept with his father’s wife, he was easily found out.
If you want to know the real story of Joseph, you should turn to the Sumerian records, where you can piece together how events panned out, or immerse yourself into the works of Egyptologists. Joseph wasn’t sold into slavery in Egypt: he was deliberately planted. Why? The Enlilites, who had lost northern Egypt in 1525 BC and consequently hegemony over all Egypt, wanted to retake the country.
This wasn’t going to be by way of armed warfare: that would have been suicidal given that at the time, black-ruled Egypt was the superpower of the world, the America of the day. Egypt had to be re-conquered using tact. And the chosen spearhead of this programme of action was none other than Joseph. As indicated above, this Joseph was not necessarily the son of the familiar Jacob: he was almost certainly a different Joseph with a different father though he was a scion of the same dynastic family that was spawned ages before by Abraham.
WHY JOSEPH WAS APT
Why did the Enlilites choose Joseph in particular as the powder keg in their long-term strategy to win back Egypt, a critical country as it housed the aeronautically and metaphysically important Giza Pyramid? There are several reasons. First, he was the bloodline heir. He might have been young but he certainly was born to the main wife of a 14th century Jacob. Second, he was exceedingly good looking and we all know that good looks can easily disarm people (ask Barack Obama or Prince William).
Third, he exuded a lot of charisma, another quality which almost automatically elicits a high and positive regard from people. Fourth, he was palpably intelligent. He had the capacity to intellectually impress. Fifth, he exhibited gifts of a seer. He could interpret dreams and forecast future scenarios and that was at a very early age. Finally, he was bold, assertive, and supremely confident in himself.
For example, he did not shrink from getting his older brothers to understand that that he was the most important person in the family, that all his brothers were his subjects futuristically, and he said that without batting an eyelid. Thus if you wanted to infiltrate and ultimately topple the enemy from the pedestal of power, Joseph, with his raft of qualities, was just the right person to deploy in such a potentially dangerous mission.
Now, with qualities such as Joseph possessed, he would easily attract attention and even curiosity from the Egyptian intelligence spooks who permeated practically every aspect of Egyptian society. Indeed, his accent and skin colour would easily give him away. Soon he would be interrogated and it would emerge that he was a son of a powerful Hebrew political dynasty back in Canaan, who once ruled northern Egypt and were therefore anathema to the Egyptian establishment. Once so exposed, he would be charged for espionage and end up either in jail or in the grave. As such, to get him into Egypt anonymously, the Enlilites would have to use tact. Exactly what would that be?
NEXT WEEK: JOSEPH ON CREST OF WAVE
Columns
GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device). But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over £18,000 (around P ¼ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli. As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimore’s computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employees’ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employees’ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clients’ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a system’s data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase, predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
Columns
“I Propose to Diana Tonight”
About five days before Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed landed in Paris, General Atiku, a certain Edward Williams was taking a walk in a woods in the Welsh town of Mountain Ash. Williams, then 73, was a psychic of some renown. He had in the past foretold assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981, and Pope John Paul II, which came to pass on May 13, 1981.
As he trudged the woods, Williams had a sudden premonition that pointed to Diana’s imminent fate as per Christopher Andersen’s book The Day Diana Died. “When the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,” Williams was later to reminisce. “In the middle was the face of Princess Diana. Her expression was sad and full of pathos. She was wearing what looked like a floral dress with a short dark cardigan. But it was vague. I went cold with fear and knew it was a sign that she was in danger.”
Williams hastily beat a retreat to his home, which he shared with his wife Mary, and related to her his presentiment, trembling like an aspen leaf as he did so. “I have never seen him so upset,” Mary recounted. “He felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.”
The following day, Williams frantically sauntered into a police station to inform the police of his premonition. The officer who attended to him would have dismissed him as no more than a crackpot but he treated him seriously in view of the accuracy of his past predictions. He took a statement and immediately passed it on to the Special Branch Investigative Unit.
The report read as follows:
“On 27 August, at 14:12 hrs, a man by the name of Edward Williams came to Mountain Ash police station. He said he was a psychic and predicted that Princess Diana was going to die. In previous years, he has predicted that the Pope and Ronald Reagan were going to be the victims of assassination attempts. On both occasions he was proved to be correct. Mr Williams appeared to be quite normal.”
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, even as Dodi and Diana were making their way to the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel in central Paris, British newspapers were awash with headlines that suggested Diana was kind of deranged. Writes Andrew Morton in Diana in Pursuit of Love: “In The Independent Diana was described as ‘a woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anything’. She was ‘suffering from a form of arrested development’. ‘Isn’t it time she started using her head?’ asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled ‘A Story of Love’; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: ‘William can’t help it, he just doesn’t like the man.’ William was reportedly ‘horrified’ and ‘doesn’t think Mr Fayed is good for his mother’ – or was that just the press projecting their own prejudices? The upmarket Sunday Times newspaper, which had first serialised my biography of the princess, now put her in the psychiatrist’s chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana ‘On the Couch’, asking why she was so ‘depressed’ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications – about Prince Philip’s hostility to the relationship, Diana’s prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.”
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodi’s bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones furtively asked Diana as to what the programme for the evening was. This Trevor did out of sheer desperation as Dodi had ceased and desisted from telling members of his security detail, let alone anyone else for that matter, what his onward destination was for fear that that piece of information would be passed on to the paparazzi. Diana kindly obliged Trevor though her response was terse and scarcely revealing. “Well, eventually we will be going out to a restaurant”, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleagues’ hands were tied: they could not do a recce on it as was standard practice for the security team of a VIP principal. Dodi certainly, General, was being recklessly by throwing such caution to the winds.
At about 16:30, Diana and Dodi drew up at the Ritz Hotel, where they were received by acting hotel manager Claude Roulet. The front entrance of the hotel was already crawling with paparazzi, as a result of which the couple took the precaution of using the rear entrance, where hopefully they would make their entry unperturbed and unmolested. The first thing they did when they were ensconced in the now $10,000 a night Imperial Suite was to spend some time on their mobiles and set about touching base with friends, relations, and associates. Diana called at least two people, her clairvoyant friend Rita Rogers and her favourite journalist Richard Kay of The Daily Mail.
Rita, General, was alarmed that Diana had proceeded to venture to Paris notwithstanding the warning she had given Dodi and herself in relation to what she had seen of him in the crystal ball when the couple had consulted her. When quizzed as to what the hell she indeed was doing in Paris at that juncture, Diana replied that she and Dodi had simply come to do some shopping, which though partially true was not the material reason they were there. “But Diana, remember what I told Dodi,” Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, “Yes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.” Well, she did not live up to her promise as we shall soon unpack General.
As for Richard Kay, Diana made known to him that, “I have decided I am going to radically change my life. I am going to complete my obligations to charities and to the anti-personnel land mines cause, but in November I want to completely withdraw from formal public life.”
Once she was done with her round of calls, Diana went down to the hair saloon by the hotel swimming pool to have her hair washed and blow-dried ahead of the scheduled evening dinner.
THE “TELL ME YES” RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the “Tell Me Yes” engagement ring Dodi had ordered in Monte Carlo a week earlier, Dodi decided to check on Repossi Jewellery, which was right within the Ritz prencincts, known as the Place Vendome. It could have taken less than a minute for Dodi to get to the store on foot but he decided to use a car to outsmart the paparazzi invasion. He was driven there by Trevor Rees-Jones, with Alexander Kez Wingfield and Claude Roulet following on foot, though he entered the shop alone.
The Repossi store had closed for the holiday season but Alberto Repossi, accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law, had decided to travel all the way from his home in Monaco and momentarily open it for the sake of the potentially highly lucrative Dodi transaction. Alberto, however, disappointed Dodi as the ring he had chosen was not the one he produced. The one he showed Dodi was pricier and perhaps more exquisite but Dodi was adamant that he wanted the exact one he had ordered as that was what Diana herself had picked. It was a ploy on the part of Repossi to make a real killing on the sale, his excuse to that effect being that Diana deserved a ring tha was well worthy of her social pedigree. With Dodi having expressed disaffection, Repossi rendered his apologies and assured Dodi he would make the right ring available shortly, whereupon Dodi repaired back to the hotel to await its delivery. But Dodi did insist nonetheless that the pricier ring be delivered too in case it appealed to Diana anyway.
Repossi delivered the two rings an hour later. They were collected by Roulet. On inspecting them, Dodi chose the very one he had seen in Monte Carlo, apparently at the insistence of Diana. There is a possibility that Diana, who was very much aware of her public image and was not comfortable with ostentatious displays of wealth, may have deliberately shown an interest in a less expensive engagement ring. It may have been a purely romantic as opposed to a prestigious choice for her.
The value of the ring, which was found on a wardrobe shelf in Dodi’s apartment after the crash, has been estimated to be between $20,000 and $250,000 as Repossi has always refused to be drawn into revealing how much Dodi paid for it. The sum, which enjoyed a 25 percent discount, was in truth paid for not by Dodi himself but by his father as was the usual practice.
Dodi was also shown Repossi’s sketches for a bracelet, a watch, and earrings which he proposed to create if Diana approved of them.
DIANA AND DODI GUSH OVER IMMINENT NUPTIALS
At about 7 pm, Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodi’s apartment at a place known as the Arc de Trompe. They went there to properly tog themselves out for the scheduled evening dinner. They spent two hours at the luxurious apartment. As usual, the ubiquitous paparazzi were patiently waiting for them there.
As they lingered in the apartment, Dodi beckoned over to his butler Rene Delorm and showed him the engagement ring. “Dodi came into my kitchen,” Delorm relates. “He looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldn’t hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box … He said, ‘Rene, I’m going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinner’.” Rene described the ring as “a spectacular diamond encrusted ring, a massive emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, set on a yellow and white gold band sitting in a small light-grey velvet box”.
Just before 9 pm, Dodi called the brother of his step-father, Hassan Yassen, who also was staying at the Ritz that night, and told him that he hoped to get married to Diana by the end of the year.
Later that same evening, both Dodi and Diana would talk to Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. “They called me and said we’re coming back (to London) on Sunday (August 31) and on Monday (September 1) they are
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RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the fasting month for Muslims, where over one billion Muslims throughout the world fast from dawn to sunset, and pray additional prayers at night. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to Allah, and self-control. It is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. As you read this Muslims the world over have already begun fasting as the month of Ramadan has commenced (depending on the sighting of the new moon).
‘The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people, in it are clear signs of guidance and Criterion, therefore whoever of you who witnesses this month, it is obligatory on him to fast it. But whoever is ill or traveling let him fast the same number of other days, God desires ease for you and not hardship, and He desires that you complete the ordained period and glorify God for His guidance to you, that you may be grateful”. Holy Qur’an (2 : 185)
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars upon which the structure of Islam is built. The other four are: the declaration of one’s belief in Allah’s oneness and in the message of Muhammad (PBUH); regular attendance to prayer; payment of zakaat (obligatory charity); and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
As explained in an earlier article, fasting includes total abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking, refraining from obscenity, avoiding getting into arguments and including abstaining from marital relations, from sunrise to sunset. While fasting may appear to some as difficult Muslims see it as an opportunity to get closer to their Lord, a chance to develop spiritually and at the same time the act of fasting builds character, discipline and self-restraint.
Just as our cars require servicing at regular intervals, so do Muslims consider Ramadan as a month in which the body and spirit undergoes as it were a ‘full service’. This ‘service’ includes heightened spiritual awareness both the mental and physical aspects and also the body undergoing a process of detoxification and some of the organs get to ‘rest’ through fasting.
Because of the intensive devotional activity fasting, Ramadan has a particularly high importance, derived from its very personal nature as an act of worship but there is nothing to stop anyone from privately violating Allah’s commandment of fasting if one chooses to do so by claiming to be fasting yet eating on the sly. This means that although fasting is obligatory, its observance is purely voluntary. If a person claims to be a Muslim, he is expected to fast in Ramadan.
The reward Allah gives for proper fasting is very generous. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) quotes Allah as saying: “All actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.” We are also told by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that the reward for proper fasting is admittance into heaven.
Fasting earns great reward when it is done in a ‘proper’ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of one’s feelings and emotions. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that when fasting, a person should not allow himself to be drawn into a quarrel or a slanging match. He teaches us: “On a day of fasting, let no one of you indulge in any obscenity, or enter into a slanging match. Should someone abuse or fight him, let him respond by saying: ‘I am fasting!’”
This high standard of self-restraint fits in well with fasting, which is considered as an act of self-discipline. Islam requires us to couple patience with voluntary abstention from indulgence in our physical desires. The purpose of fasting helps man to attain a high degree of sublimity, discipline and self-restraint. In other words, this standard CAN BE achieved by every Muslim who knows the purpose of fasting and strives to fulfill it.
Fasting has another special aspect. It makes all people share in the feelings of hunger and thirst. In normal circumstances, people with decent income may go from one year’s end to another without experiencing the pangs of hunger which a poor person may feel every day of his life. Such an experience helps to draw the rich one’s conscience nearer to needs of the poor. A Muslim is encouraged to be more charitable and learns to give generously for a good cause.
Fasting also has a universal or communal aspect to it. As Muslims throughout the world share in this blessed act of worship, their sense of unity is enhanced by the fact that every Muslim individual joins willingly in the fulfillment of this divine commandment. This is a unity of action and purpose, since they all fast in order to be better human beings. As a person restrains himself from the things he desires most, in the hope that he will earn Allah’s pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a “season of worship.” Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qur’an more frequently and also strive to improve on their inner and outer character. Thus, their devotion is more complete and they feel much happier in Ramadan because they feel themselves to be closer to their Creator.